My 2nd year of collecting baseball cards, and the last card set before expansion to 24 teams and divisional play. I have completed the whole set. (Series 1-5, and 7 during 1968. In my neighborhood, the 6th series was unavailable. I completed this in the 1980s.) -- 28-SEP-2009

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Felipe Alou (#55)

Felipe Alou played 17 seasons (1958-74) for 6 teams, mostly the Giants and Braves. Although mostly an outfielder, he played about half his games at 1st base from 1965-67 with the Braves and from 1971-73 with the Yankees.

Felipe is the oldest of the 3 Alou brothers, who all began their careers with the Giants. Felipe's son Moises also played in the majors from 1990-2008.

Alou was signed by the Giants in 1955, and played 2 ½ seasons in the minors before making his big-league debut with the Giants in June 1958. Felipe backed up rookie Willie Kirkland in right field for the remainder of the season.

1959 was more of the same for Alou, backing up Kirkland in right field. In late July, rookie Willie McCovey joined the Giants, which caused incumbent 1st baseman Orlando Cepeda to play about half his games in left field for the next few seasons. With Willie Mays in center field, all other outfielders would have to vie for playing time in right field.

In 1960 Alou was the regular left fielder for the 50+ games when Cepeda would move in to 1st base. From 1961 to 1963, Felipe was the Giants' regular right fielder, often backed up by his brother Matty.
His youngest brother Jesus joined the Giants in September 1963, Felipe's last few weeks with the Giants. All 3 Alou brothers played in the same outfield only once – on September 15th.

After the season, Felipe was traded to the Braves (with pitcher Billy Hoeft, catcher Ed Bailey, and infielder Ernie Bowman) for pitchers Bob Shaw and Bob Hendley, and catcher Del Crandall.
Alou began the '64 season as the Braves’ starting center fielder, but by mid-June had lost that post to Lee Maye, and spent the remainder of the season as the 4th outfielder.

Felipe began playing 1st base in 1965, and spent the next 3 seasons dividing his time between 1st, left field, and center field.
He also was quite good with the stick. In 1966 he finished 2nd among NL batters with a .327 average (right behind his brother Matty). In 1968 he finished 3rd (behind Pete Rose and Matty) with a .317 average.

After Mack Jones was traded away following the 1967 season, Alou spent the next 2 seasons as the Braves' regular center fielder.

After the '69 season, he was traded to Oakland for pitcher Jim Nash. Alou only spent one full season with the Athletics. At age 35, he played in an outfield that included Rick Monday and Reggie Jackson, both 24. Felipe played in left field, and also 70 games in right (mostly when Jackson played center in Monday's absence).

Felipe started the first 2 games of the 1971 season, then at week's end was traded to the Yankees. He played the rest of '71, all of '72, and most of '73 in the Big Apple. He was a regular in 1971, playing RF/CF/1B. For the next 2 seasons he shared the first base job with Ron Blomberg.

In September 1973 Alou hit the road again, this time for Montreal. He played 19 games for the Expos during the season's final month, then was sold to the Brewers in the off-season. After 3 games with Milwaukee, he was released in April 1974.

Alou became a manager after his playing career, with stops in Montreal (1992-2001) and San Francisco (2003-06).

Set description I posted in Zistle

The 1968 Topps set included 598 cards, 11 fewer than the previous year. As in 1967, the cards had vertical backs. Topps returned to the teams’ color scheme that was used in the 1966 set (and would also be used in 1969). Cards in the high-numbered 7th series are more difficult to find, due to limited distribution that late in the season.

Among the cards are 20 manager cards, 12 league leader cards, and 8 World Series cards. Inexplicably, there are only team cards for 13 of the 20 teams. The set includes just 30 rookie stars cards (down from 43 the previous year), and there is no Giants Rookie Stars card, which is odd considering that Bobby Bonds would have been a candidate for that card. Multi-player cards decreased from 13 in 1967 to just 3 in the 1968 set. Two of them feature stars from multiple teams. All-star cards (20) returned to the set in 1968, after being absent for several years.

The 1968 set includes the final cards for 48 players and 2 managers, including long-time veterans Eddie Mathews and Roger Maris (who both wrapped up their careers in the 1968 World Series), Rocky Colavito, Elston Howard, Bill Henry, Larry Jackson, Al Worthington, Norm Siebern, Larry Sherry, Jim Bouton, and Floyd Robinson.

Notable rookie cards in the set are Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman (on the same card) and Johnny Bench. Other rookie cards in the set (all “solo” cards) include Gary Nolan, Don Wilson, Manny Sanguillen, Mike Marshall, and Danny Frisella.

1968 rookies with significant playing time who were omitted from the set include Reggie Jackson, Bobby Bonds, Del Unser, Bobby Cox, Hector Torres, Tom Burgmeier, Marty Pattin, and Sparky Lyle.

Other quirks in the 1968 set: - For some (contractual?) reason, all the Astros cards show the team name as “Houston”, and all Astros logos are airbrushed out of the photos. - Since the Athletics moved to Oakland in the off-season, all photos are airbrushed. - As mentioned above, 7 teams did not have a team card, and there was no Giants Rookie Stars card. - The design of the “burlap” borders was changed after the first series. - The "Topps All-Rookie Team" trophy is missing from the cards for Rick Monday, Rich Nye, and Dick Hughes.